I think you are right John, there is a lot of symmetry on it, I can just barely see the back side in the reference I have. I may see If I can contact someone who was in the film, I do have "Montones" contact info, I wonder if he would have some shots or memorabilia?_______________________________________________________

Holy cow Fred, I did not even notice that picture before at the top of the page .. Is that the original shuttle or the restored version?... that is perfect!_______________________________________________________

That is a great picture. I am running it through a photoshop program (the gimp) and comparing it to some grabs off of the film. I am just making sure the proportion is not squished or anything. The cross section is critical here..._______________________________________________________

I always imagined that the thing descended to the cargo off-load area seen in the film where the bays we see on the shuttle's flanks would be laterally unloaded/loaded. With a ship this big, cranes and forklifts would take an eternity.

It makes sense what you say here !

My theory is that the shuttle could "unload itself" like a Skycrane, see what I mean ? Since the shuttle was designed like an actual Skycrane helicopter (a huge cargo area under a craft supplied with heavy engine(s) and four "cardinal landing gears"), it would be logical for it to have a similar way to upload / unload itself...

TFS with us Fred It's looking good...albeit a little small for my taste
You know me: Bigatures are my thing

I definitely understand your point JB but from what I saw the scale of this one will be very close to the Halcyon Nostromo released years ago... Could be interesting to put them side to side for comparison once built !_________________THE FUTURE IS A THING OF THE PAST